Preface To Death
by KoMonkeyXXX
Summary: Small excerpts from the book rewritten into Simon's point of view, leading up to his death. Not sure if this is good or bad or what. Reviews are appreciated whether they are flames, constructive criticism, or the fangirl 'OMG I LOVE THIS'. Or, you know, an actual review.


**Preface To Death by KoMonkeyXXX.**

It wasn't really that I didn't _mind _leaving, traipsing back through the undergrowth to return to the littluns and Piggy- it wasn't really that I didn't mind showing cowardice- cowardice in the eyes of savages- it was that I knew that there was no beast- at least not on the outside.

x-X-x

The others left after me, this I became sure of as soon as _it_ was reported. The beast, the three had seen. Piggy glanced at them with the contempt of someone who knows better, asking, worriedly, in that miserable nasal voice, "Are you sure?" The imaginings of devils had overcome better men in the daylight. "Really sure, I mean?"

Ralph responded in that tone of suspiring indignation, "I told you a dozen times now, we saw it."

Ralph was the chief. He couldn't lie about something so substantial, so dangerously close to every boy's heart…Jack stood a few steps down the beach, reduced to simply caressing figures in the sand. He seemed different; where before there had been incredulity and rivalry between he and Ralph, the terrors of the night had shattered that thin line in his head between civility and savagery; the rising antagonism was evident in even the way he held himself.

Had he fallen apart? Or had he been this way and kept himself under wraps, the truth buried in some staple of his head?

I sat in the shadows, watching them with my determining eyes. Something must happen, so I would wait.

"What about my hunters?" Jack inquired. I slipped forward out of the shadows. Ralph ignored him and pointed at the rising salvation; the tip of the yellow globe advancing from its hiding place behind or below the ocean. He raved about fear and hiding and Jack snapped, once again, "What about my hunters?"

"Boys armed with sticks."

The hot red color of blood and anger loitered on his face as Jack walked up to the platform and took a few breaths of the conch.

"I've called an assembly," Jack spoke, post hoc the fight over the conch, "because of a lot of things."

x-X-x

The forest had stolen the boy away; the lure of fresh meat, independence, and leadership overpowered his need for rescue and civilization. The boys left before the platform looked around in shamed silence, a depression filling the void Jack Merridew had left behind.

I took the conch from Piggy and flinched at the eyes now watching me. "Simon?" Ralph inquired. "What is it this time?"

_It's not true… _I thought. _There must be something, anything-_

"I thought there might be something to do. Something we-" The eyes, the dozens of eyes, I suddenly couldn't take. Would it be too much to ask, for one friendly face? _Piggy._

_The beast._

"I think we ought to climb the mountain."

_Can't be real._

"What else is there to do?"

The intellectually inferior scoffed at the idea and I finished speaking. Didn't they understand- the beast- was only a monster…a creation of the humans' infernal soul?

_Maybe there isn't a beast, _I said once. _What I mean is, maybe it's just us._

x-X-x

The pig came squealing into the jungle mat, staggering and shifting weight, weapons of death protruding from her as she flopped over into the mat. The degenerates, boys still that they were, intruded upon my solitude, my clearing, falling on her.

The shrieks of terror as they ravaged her, the blood and the sweat and the noise ended as abruptly as it started. The boys poked and prodded her before, one pushing his spear in inch by inch to hear her yell, before Jack relented, cutting her throat to release her into merciful death.

The blood he flicked onto his peers, and he rubbed the blood on Maurice as they giggled. Roger removed his spear, only to have it become the subject of more jokes. I hid away, my face covered in leaves. Their glee terrified me; I could imagine them doing this to a human, to a littlun, to Ralph, Piggy, me, each other.

They spoke of fire and feasts, and I wished they'd go away- but wishful thinking never got me anywhere. Wishful thinking wouldn't leave me alone in a bloodbath. I continued to watch in mortified, captivated silence as the sow was beheaded and the crown set upon a sharpened stick.

A testament, if I may paraphrase Jack, an offering- to the beast.

I played the scene over unwillingly in my head and thought I had proof of my contemplations of the human race.

The devil began to speak.

x-X-x

The bloody trails on my face gave relief to my conscious mind; when I awoke the ignorant flies surrounded their lord and I heard the rumbling of the angrily tightened sky. I stared blankly out before rolling into a seated position and using the hanging vines as a lift.

Though no one else was around, I repeated to myself, these trusting words- "What else is there to do?"

I crawled through the tangles and tangles of vines until I came to the sparse foundation of the island- a slightly higher land of thickets and sparser jungle. My weariness canceled out most of my other emotions, determination the only lasting affection left on my face. I swallowed with ardor and faltered; my unsteady legs almost refusing to carry me across the flat stone, which was just as well since I fell to my knees on sight of the "beast".

The decaying corpse rose and bowed and rose again, dancing only for the unrelenting wind. The tangle of civilized vines, elastic, and sailcloth held together the carcass only so the flies could glut, and I, sensing the injustice, cut him free. The bowing beast was nothing more than a long dead man, and fear the only monstrosity on this island.

At least, for now.

x-X-x

I lurched down the mountain bearing the news of the dead and shameful secret that tore the island apart only hours before. I bore news of the beast, and brought it totteringly to the base of their new camp.

I didn't see- the dance, the frenzy, the fear, the strength- I was tired. "There's a dead man." I tried to say, but it sounded frighteningly like babble. "On the hill."

They chanted so loudly, the ears were hard pressed to hear anything. "There's a dead man on the hill! The beast…the beast is dead!"

"Him! Him!" They shouted, and I yelled louder. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" _

"The beast is a dead man on a hill!" I shouted. Why weren't they listening? The devil hadn't listened either- or hadn't understood. "A…dead…man…on…a…hill…" Exhaustion claimed me, almost overtook me as I stumbled around.

They continued, these possessed boys- "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_"

They encircled me, chanting at me as I desperately tried to get my point across. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_ _Do him in!" _I struggled away from them over a rock and onto the sand bank.

The released pain as they fell to kill me was final- and so I didn't scream. They did enough of that for me. I remembered something the demon had said- no, something I thought, for the demon couldn't exist outside of me.

"_-Or else," said the Lord of The Flies, "we shall do you? See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?" _

_You were right, _I thought. It would be one of my last. _But so was I._

And sleep came in to me.


End file.
